KHH is Kimberly Hatch Harrison

I'm a former research biologist, and a former classroom teacher. Now I am the head writer and producer at Socratica - a company dedicated to making beautiful educational materials. Look for our videos on YouTube and our apps on the Google play store!

Why don’t animators use well-known physics equations to make motion more believable?

Check out Rhett Alain’s plot comparing the falling Mosasaur from Jurassic World with a falling ball. This isn’t complicated – it’s simple mechanics, what you’d learn in high school physics.

From Plotly by Rhett Allain

What would Galileo say?!

I don’t want to pick on Jurassic World – this is a problem endemic to all movie animation. Superheros jumping as if their bodies were weightless and elastic. Buildings being destroyed by minor explosions. Bodies flying around from the impact of a gunshot. Heroes outrunning fireballs. I know it’s fantasy – but we have a lifetime of experience with gravity on this planet, and our eyes know in a fraction of a second when we see an object falling incorrectly. This doesn’t enhance fantasy – rather, it breaks that beautiful meditative spell that movies can put us under. Break it enough times, and you’ve lost your audience. They’ll never believe what they’re seeing in that gut-instinct, “eyes of a child” kind of way.

Can you imagine how refreshing it would be to see convincing special effects motion? And it wouldn’t be that hard. Just crack open a physics textbook. Hey, if you can learn how to use studio-quality animation software, you can learn how to do a little high school physics.

There’s a lot of talk in the news and on school campuses about the lack of women in STEM. Is it due to subtle gender bias, overt gender bias, harassment, work policies incompatible with having a family, lack of interest, “leaky pipeline” – is it none of the above or all of the above?

As a STEM person with two X chromosomes, I’ve never doubted that STEM was for me (it’s still my passion, even though I’m not doing research anymore). I read scientific journals, I watch STEM videos, and I make STEM videos. So how come my videos aren’t getting more views from women?

Just look at our channel statistics:

Overall – 69% male, 31% female:

But wait, it gets worse. For a video on Neutron Stars, 91% male, 9% female:

We always knew we had predominantly male viewers (our comments are almost all from men), but the stats for our neutron stars video frankly shocked me. Our videos are clear, concise, friendly, and more often than not, presented by a woman. Most of our videos are written by women. And yet, where are our female viewers?

If you are someone who is concerned about the lack of women in STEM, please share our videos with the women in your life. Get the word out. Science is for everyone. Socratica is for everyone. We need more viewers of all stripes, but there is just no reason why women shouldn’t be loving our videos just as much as men. Come on.